


whelks

by and_hera



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Character Study, Gender-Neutral Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, M/M, Mostly Canon Compliant, Set during season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:28:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25777393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/and_hera/pseuds/and_hera
Summary: Lance savors being the Red Paladin. He savors his time with Red, because he loves this lion. It’s a different kind of love than his for Blue, because piloting the Blue Lion was easy. Piloting the Blue Lion was like riding a bike. Piloting the Blue Lion was like swimming in the ocean, head breaching the surface and laughing and tasting salt on your lips. Piloting the Red Lion is the feeling you get when your heart skips a beat. Piloting the Red Lion takes effort, takes control.or, Lance thinks about primary colors, constellations, Varadero Beach, and bicycles.
Relationships: Allura & Lance (Voltron), Hunk & Lance (Voltron), Keith & Lance (Voltron), Keith/Lance (Voltron), Lance & Pidge | Katie Holt
Comments: 4
Kudos: 54





	whelks

**Author's Note:**

> am i writing a voltron fic in 2020? yes. am i sorry? yes.  
> have a lance character study! set in s3 bc i don't claim canon after s3, after fake shiro comes back but before keith leaves for the blade. shiro isn't a big part of this bc he's a fakeass bitch at this point. also, this is totally klance but it's pre relationship so there's no real romance here except for lance yearning  
> audie and anna this is all your fault. boooo. love you  
> leave comments and kudos if you enjoy! come talk to me on twitter @lcvelaces <3

> _and here are the whelks –_
> 
> _whirlwinds,_
> 
> _each the size of a fist,_
> 
> _but always cracked and broken –_
> 
> _clearly they have been travelling_
> 
> _under the sky-blue waves_
> 
> _for a long time._

“Sometimes flying is like riding a bike,” Lance says once. This, of course, sparks a conversation with Allura about Earth culture and whether or not Altea had their own equivalent of a bicycle. Lance thinks he’s right, though. 

You only learn how to ride a bike once, and then you have it down. You never have to relearn to keep your balance. Yeah, okay, maybe you’ll get rusty if it’s been a few years since you’ve been on one, and it might take a minute or two of pedaling to get the rhythm right, but you never forget how to ride a bicycle. It sticks in your head. 

When Lance was back on Earth, way before the Garrison, he rode his bike everywhere. He didn’t have a car, nor did he want one. His house was by the beach, and it was in a little town, and he never needed to drive anywhere. He rode his bicycle around, and he left tire tracks in the sand.

Now, he wonders if he’ll remember how to ride a bike. Or, no, that’s not the right word. He’ll remember. No one ever forgets. No, what Lance wonders is if he’ll ever feel the same way he did when he was thirteen and biking down Varadero Beach after the sun went down. He wonders if he’ll look up at the night sky and see anything but a war fought. He wonders if he’ll look at the sand below him and forget to take it for granted.

He’s doing this all wrong.

“Sometimes flying is like riding a bike,” Lance says out of nowhere, sitting upside down on the couch in the lounge of the castleship. 

Keith, sitting on the couch opposite the one Lance is currently occupying, tilts his head. “Like, a motorbike? The thing we used to get Shiro way back when?”

“No no no,” Lance replies, waving a hand. “I mean a wholeass bicycle. Like, the really old classic ones from the twenty-first century.”

“What’s a bicycle?” Allura asks brightly, sitting on the edge of Lance’s couch. “Is that another Earth thing?”

“Yeah!” Lance says, and he rolls onto his side and then sits up straight, like you’re supposed to sit on a couch. “It’s like… you sit on the middle part, and there are two wheels. You hold onto handles that control the direction the wheels turn.”

Pidge pushes their glasses up their nose and props their elbow on Keith’s shoulder. “Lance, as usual, is horribly describing it.”

“Hey!”

Allura laughs, and everything is so calm right now. It’s wonderful. No Galra are attacking. No one is in imminent danger. The castleship is flying to the next planet they’re supposed to be diplomatic to and make an alliance with. They have three days of this, thank God. It’s been too long since they had a break, in Lance’s opinion.

Pidge pulls up a picture of a bike on their tablet that they perpetually have in their pocket. Allura looks at it with curious eyes. She hums. “It looks like something similar to a _dalan_ ,” Allura says, “but with less gears. Just… simplified.”

“Well, that seems to be the usual when it comes to Altean tech versus Earth’s,” Keith says.

“This isn’t even about tech!” Lance protests, because he enjoys making everything into a fight, especially with Keith. “It’s just a bicycle. What was I even talking about?”

“It was something about how riding a bicycle is like flying,” Allura says, but Lance can’t hear her because as she speaks Hunk walks in, grinning, and he says “Dinner is ready! I managed to spice up some of the goo and it tastes _super_ good, if I do say so myself.”

And the conversation is over. The goo is, as promised, super good.

* * *

Shiro came back, somehow. Second time in a row. Lance’s hero makes another daring escape.

The thing is, no one knows how the hell he managed it. And no one knows what happened while he was gone.

Whatever. He’s here, now. It’s good! It’s a good thing! The whole team missed Shiro. He’s so important to who they are as a team. The natural-born leader. The Black Paladin.

It’s just… it’s funny. The team spent God knows how long trying to learn the new lions. Keith became the Black Paladin despite not being a natural-born anything (at least, in Lance’s opinion, which is known to be flawed). Lance became the Red Paladin despite not having Keith’s fire _or_ Keith’s talent. Allura became the Blue Paladin, and she deserved it. It’s just funny, because the team spent forever relearning Voltron (it was like the first few days on Arus all over again, and no one wants to go back to the first few days on Arus), and when Shiro finally comes back, the perfect solution to go back to normal, no one dared bring it up.

Lance is sure that everyone was thinking it. Shiro’s back, and Shiro is arguably the best paladin of them all. He should go back to Black, and Keith should go back to Red, and Lance should go back to Blue. But no, look at Allura, she’s fierce and incredible and doing better with Blue than Lance ever did, let’s be honest. But yes, look at Keith, he’s fiery and powerful and did better with Red than Lance ever did, let’s be honest. 

Okay, so there’s the solution. Process of elimination: Shiro’s back, Keith is Red, Allura is Blue. And Lance stays on the castleship because Lance is the seventh wheel. Always has been.

It’s an obvious solution, but no one ever says it. Lance doesn’t know why. Maybe it’s because no one wants to hurt his feelings. Maybe it’s because Shiro has been acting strangely ever since he came back, something that started with his new haircut (like, it looks fine, but dude! the original cut was a classic!). Lance doesn’t know. But for now, things are staying as they were after Shiro left. Lance is savoring it as much as he can, because… well.

Because, as much as he loathes to admit it, he likes being the Red Paladin. He likes working with Keith fucking Kogane, jackass extraordinaire. He likes teasing him and helping him in the same breath. 

(look, Lance isn’t an idiot. he knows what this probably means. that _doesn’t_ mean that he isn’t going to ignore it for as long as humanly possible.)

Lance savors being the Red Paladin. He savors his time with Red, because he loves this lion. It’s a different kind of love than his for Blue, because piloting the Blue Lion was easy. Piloting the Blue Lion was like riding a bike. Piloting the Blue Lion was like swimming in the ocean, head breaching the surface and laughing and tasting salt on your lips. Piloting the Red Lion is the feeling you get when your heart skips a beat. Piloting the Red Lion takes effort, takes control.

It’s gotten easier with time. But sometimes Lance goes and sits in Blue’s hangar and just talks about anything and everything. He never hears a reply in his head like he used to. He thinks Blue is listening, though.

* * *

Allura is working on some Altean thing or other when Lance walks in. “Oh, hello Lance,” she says kindly, looking up from the screen that illuminates her cheeks in blue. “Anything I can help you with?”

Lance shrugs, making his way around so he can see what she’s doing. He can’t read Altean, obviously, but it looks like something to do with the shields. Making sure they’re strong enough. “Actually, I was going to see if I can help you with anything,” he replies easily. “Pidge and Hunk are working on some techy stuff that I don’t understand, and Keith and Shiro are training. I wondered if you could use an extra set of hands.” He waves his hands as if to prove a point, and she smiles at him.

Recently, Allura has stopped looking at Lance like he’s only going to flirt with her. Recently, Lance has stopped only flirting with her. They’re something like friends now, Lance and Allura. He still calls her beautiful and offers to kiss her good luck, but it’s like a joke. Allura laughs and isn’t annoyed.

It’s… nice.

“Thank you, Lance,” she says. “I’m just finishing up here, though.” She clicks one last thing and the images of the castle systems light up green. She closes the screen. “However, that means I have free time now. If you would like to do anything.”

He grins. “What did you have in mind, Princess?” he asks. 

They end up in the pool, the upside down one that Lance wanted to swim in forever ago and never got the chance, because of Keith and broken elevators and Zarkon. Allura is in a bathing suit and she is beautiful. 

(Keith was in a bathing suit and he was- nope, nope, not doing that today).

Lance swims and it feels like coming home. The pool isn’t upside down anymore, Allura said that she could teach him how to swim like that but Lance really just wanted a break, so she flipped it. The water is clear and blue and beautiful. 

Lance swims and it feels like coming home; it feels like being in the ocean and he can almost hear his sister shouting and his little brother swimming behind him until he opens his eyes. He opens his eyes and there’s the girl of his dreams instead, long white hair in a braid and plastered to her back, and the only thing he can muster himself to feel is _homesick_.

That’s not a surprise, though, because he’s felt homesick every goddamn day since they left Earth, so he splashes her in the face and laughs at her expression.

“Lance!” she says loudly, and wipes water from her eyes. She’s grinning. “You better tell me that splashing someone is a friendly gesture on Earth, because if it isn’t, you’ve started a war you can’t finish.”

Lance smirks and cracks his knuckles. “On Earth,” he says, “splashing someone is about as friendly as fighting them. So…” 

Allura’s eyes narrow. She cups her hand in a precise way and gets Lance in the eyes. He opens his mouth as if to say _how could you?_ and starts swimming, kicking his feet above the water in a way that will absolutely drench her. He can hear her muffled shouting even while underwater.

They fight for a while, and then they race (Allura insists that she was a champion on Altea, but Lance was swimming before he was walking, so he beats her solidly), and then they just swim and enjoy each other’s company.

It’s surprisingly nice, just enjoying each other’s company. It’s been so long since they’ve had a solid, more-than-one-day-long break. It’s been so long since Lance has actually talked to Allura, not including flirting attempts that are more out of endearment than a genuine attraction and shouting help while fighting off yet another Galra battleship.

“How’s Blue doing?” Lance asks brightly, floating on his back and looking up at the ceiling. “I hope you’re treating her well.”

“Oh, of course I am,” Allura says seriously, and Lance can’t tell if she’s joking with him or if she really means it. “Obviously I’ve never piloted a lion before, but it’s getting easier to work with her in time.”

“Yeah,” Lance agrees, almost wistful. “She’s really something.”

“Was it… like that for you?” Allura asks, and she sounds unsure. Allura is never unsure. Lance stands up. 

“Like what?” he asks.

She is decidedly not looking at him. “Difficult to work with at first. I mean, you remember how much I struggled with her at the beginning. Was it like that for you?”

Lance thinks about it. He thinks about riding his bike. He thinks about swimming at Varadero Beach. “No,” he says. “Not really.”

“Oh,” Allura says softly.

“But it _was_ like that with Red,” he continues. “Blue was… Blue was something special. There’s certainly no other sentient mecha lion out there like her, you know?” He sighs. “But learning to fly Red is different. He’s fast and fiery, I guess. I’ve never worked with someone like him before, besides Keith.”

“And I think you and Keith have been working pretty well lately,” Allura says in a voice that she must think is sneaky but really isn’t. Lance shoots her a glare, and she laughs.

“Yeah, well, I guess,” he concedes, throwing his hands up. “But you know what I mean. Changing lions is hard. Don’t get me wrong, I love Red,” he says quickly, “but sometimes… sometimes I miss her.”

Allura nods. “Sometimes I miss flying the castleship,” she says. “Sometimes I miss being on Altea. Well, I think I always miss Altea. I always _will_ miss Altea. But sometimes it gets so bad that I just go and sit in the room where my father’s consciousness used to be and sometimes I think I can smell the juniberries.”

“I miss Earth a lot,” Lance agrees. “I know it’s not the same, but. I get it a little.”

Allura nods sadly. “We just have to make them proud now, right? While we’re gone?”

She talks about Altea like she can still go home. “Yeah,” Lance agrees. “We’ll make them proud.”

> _All my life_
> 
> _I have been restless –_
> 
> _I have felt there is something_
> 
> _more wonderful than gloss –_
> 
> _than wholeness –_
> 
> _than staying at home._
> 
> _I have not been sure what it is._

When Lance was nine, he decided he wanted to go to space.

Then there was a while where he changed his mind, and he wanted to be a professional swimmer for a bit, and then a teacher, and then an artist. But when he realized that very few people are professional athletes, and when he realized that as much as he loves kids he has never been one for structured school, and when he realized that being an artist takes a lot of practice, he came back to space. He always came back to space, because all he had to do to think about it was look up.

He was thirteen when he came back to it. He was thirteen when he chose to go to the United States for school and become a pilot. Of course, this kind of pilot probably wouldn’t make it to space unless he was very, very good. But it was farther than he would get here.

Lance was with his mother a few nights before he left. They were laying outside in the backyard. Lance was telling her all the constellations he could remember. She was nodding along, listening to the stories of Orion and the bull and the lion with interest. That was the good thing about his mother. She never seemed disinterested with him. Even with Lance as one of five children, she never seemed disinterested.

“Do you think I’ll really make it up there?” he asked at one point, in between talking about the scorpion and the twins. “Do you think I’ll make it to space, with all the stars?”

“I do.”

“But so many people will be better than me. I don’t even know how to fly.”

“ _Mijo_ ,” she said, “you have been flying for years.”

* * *

Lance has a bad habit of annoying Pidge while they’re working. Well, Pidge would call it a bad habit. Lance would call it _being a good friend_ , but, you know. Semantics.

He has his legs propped up on their lap and they have their computer placed carefully on his legs. They’re typing away, as they always do, and Lance is rambling about this and that, as he always does.

“You know,” he says eventually, “if we hadn’t gone out to see girls that one night, none of this would have happened.”

“If we hadn’t gone out to see who now?” Pidge asks dryly, not bothering to look up from their work.

“Well, I guess you didn’t know that’s what we were doing,” Lance amends, “but that was the plan. You, me, and Hunk were going to sneak out and go see some girls, get a date, et cetera, but then you were already sneaking out! So of course, we had to chase you, and then you talked about Voltron, and Shiro crashed, and badda bing, badda boom, here we are.”

Pidge hums. “Yeah, I guess so. But you could say that about a lot of stuff. If I hadn’t snuck into the Garrison, if Shiro hadn’t gone to Kerberos in the first place, on and on. There are a lot of factors that went into it.”

Lance shrugs. “True. It’s just fun to think about. Maybe if Keith didn’t crash Shiro’s car, none of this would have happened.”

 _That_ gets Pidge to look at him. Of course. Lance is almost bitter that Pidge will look away from their laptop for a Keith story and not for him. “Keith did _what_?” they ask, delighted.

Lance rolls his eyes. “The first time Keith and Shiro met, Keith beat a simulator and then stole Shiro’s car when he wasn’t paying attention. Then Shiro pretty much adopted him, for reasons unbeknownst to me.”

“Jesus Christ,” they say, looking even more delighted. “Keith was fucking insane as a kid.”

“Actually, I think he was only a few years younger than you are now,” Lance says, “ _kid_.”

“Oh, boo,” Pidge says, and they turn back to their laptop. “Yeah, yeah, old man, I’m fifteen and a little child. We’ve talked about it before.”

Lance puts his hands up in surrender. “Hey, I’m not making fun. You do more than I do on this ship, to be honest, Mx. Pidge ‘I’m a tech genius and definitely smarter than you’ Holt.”

They don’t look at him again but they smile, and it’s a genuine one. “But you can’t forget that you’re Mr. Lance ‘I keep the team from going insane and am definitely the funniest’ McClain.”

Lance smiles, too. “Yeah, alright,” he says. “I guess I’m pretty fuckin’ incredible, aren’t I.”

“Oh, God,” Pidge says, “now I’ve given him an even bigger head.”

He leans forward and punches their arm, effectively disrupting their typing and earning a dirty look. “Love you, Pidgey,” he says with a cheeky smile, and they roll their eyes, but they have a fond smile.

They’re pretty much the coolest fifteen-year-old Lance knows. The only fifteen-year-old Lance knows up in space, so the competition isn’t hard, but still. Pidge is smart and puts up with him and he cares for her. Lance cares for all of them, at this point, Hunk as his best friend and Pidge as an annoying little sibling and Keith as his… something and Allura as his friend and Coran as his uncle and Shiro as his older brother slash dad.

He’s really glad that Shiro’s back. Even though Shiro’s acting really weird and distant and not like he used to. Whatever. He’s glad Shiro’s back, because it’s nice to have someone who makes final decisions. Technically, while Shiro was gone, Keith should have made those decisions as Black Paladin, but he was still figuring out how to fly Black, and how to not be an asshole, so Lance had to help him. A lot.

He didn’t mind it as much as he might say he did, though. Working with Keith was almost fun. A push and pull. Keith wasn’t the untouchable leader Shiro has always been; Keith was confused and a real person, and Lance supported him through it, despite their rivalry that was never really there.

Lance is man enough to admit it. Like, fine, he wanted attention from the cute boy in his class, and yeah, he wanted to be better than him. Maybe he invented a rivalry. It’s not like it matters now! He’s in space with the guy and still can’t manage to get his attention.

“Are you thinking about Keith again,” Pidge says, voice flat. Lance opens his mouth in indignation, but they keep talking: “You have the Keith face on. The one you get when you stare at him during meetings and shit.”

Lance pouts. “You shouldn’t be swearing,” he says. “You’re just a child.”

Pidge laughs at him, and they push his legs off their lap. “Go talk to him,” they say. “Get his attention. Pull on his pigtails.”

“He has pigtails?” Lance asks in confusion. They put their hand on their forehead. 

“Just go talk to him and be your annoying self,” Pidge says, and he nods, decisively. He’ll do that. Eventually.

“Thanks, Pidgeotto,” he says, and they wave him off.

* * *

Space is so, so empty.

You’d think it would have clicked with the name: _space_. That’s what so much of the universe is. Empty, cold space. There are stars, and there are planets, but it takes so long to get from one place to another, and while you’ll always have a great view, most of the time spent away from Earth is spent in nothingness.

You’d also think that the view would get old. But it doesn’t.

During Lance’s first days on the castleship, after leaving Arus, he spent a long time looking out at the stars. He didn’t recognize any of the constellations, and that was a scarier feeling than he would have expected.

The thing is, Allura made this big deal about everyone being the heroes of the universe. The defenders. The protectors. But Lance… well. Lance’s dream was always going to space. Going and touching the stars and exploring and doing what no other humans have done. And he’s done that now!

But an important part of that dream was coming _home_.

So, Lance continues to be homesick. He continues to wish he could go home. Honestly, he probably wouldn’t have minded so much if he had the ability to go home. He would have stayed and fought and done his job but he would have known the whole time that he could return back to Earth and see his siblings and his nieces and nephews and hug his mother. But he _can’t_ , so all he wants to do is go back.

The universe is a big place. So much space. Saving it is going to take a long, long time.

* * *

“Lance, get off the counter,” Hunk says, exasperated.

Lance sticks his tongue out. “I will not,” he replies. He kicks his legs back and forth, and Hunk rolls his eyes.

“Whatever,” he says, and goes back to the cupboard he’s searching. “I just don’t get it. Do Alteans have no tastebuds? Goo is fine, but it needs flavor!”

“I’m right there with ya, buddy,” Lance says sympathetically. “Like, sometimes I’m homesick because I miss my family. And sometimes I’m homesick because I just want food that doesn’t taste like ass.”

Hunk pouts. “I thought I’ve made it better lately.”

“Oh, you have!” Lance backtracks. “Mad props to you for making it taste good despite having little to no ingredients. But it’s nothing compared to my mama’s homemade food, yknow?”

“Yeah, I know,” Hunk says wistfully. “I miss good food. So much.”

Lance slides down from the counter finally, and walks over to Hunk. He looks in the cupboard, and- yikes. It’s basically empty. “We should stop at the space mall again soon,” Lance says brightly. 

“You know, my first instinct is to say absolutely not, no,” Hunk says, “but I’m desperate. Maybe Allura and Coran can live off of flavorless goo, but I can _not_.”

Lance bumps his shoulder into Hunk’s. “I’ll tell Allura to put it in the schedule. And to _not_ tell Coran, because that man doesn’t need to go fucking insane like he did last time.”

Hunk laughs. “I think that’s a smart move. We don’t need more Coran troubles.”

Lance throws an arm around Hunk’s shoulders. “I’ve missed having free time,” he says. “Haven’t you?”

“Yeah,” he replies. “It’s been a while since we’ve just been peacefully flying and not being attacked.”

“I bet the planet we’re on our way to will be the worst. What’s the name of it?”

“Xreeks,” Hunk supplies.

“Xreeks.” Lance shakes his head. “I bet they’ll secretly be working for the Galra, or Lotor, or whatever. I can’t keep track of our enemies at this point.”

“Fair,” Hunk says. “But I think Xreeks is supposed to be a peaceful planet. Or something.”

Lance scoffs. “Remember the first planet we were told was supposed to be peaceful?”

Hunk shrugs. “We’ve been surprise attacked a lot.”

“The planet with your lion,” Lance says.

“Oh my God, I almost forgot about that,” Hunk says, and he sighs. “It’s been a long time, hasn’t it.”

“Either that, or we’ve done so much that it feels like it’s been longer than it is,” Lance agrees.

“Probably both.”

“Probably both.”

Hunk closes the cupboard. “Want a snack? I’ve got some _wonderful_ goo if you’re hungry.”

“No thanks!” Lance says emphatically, and Hunk laughs.

* * *

Lance makes new constellations.

Obviously, he isn’t nearly as professional about it as people on Earth probably were when they came up with Orion and the Pleiades, but he does it anyway. While on Ba’nti, the planet with the people who had shells like turtles, he names one “Sharpshooter” in honor of the way the stars lined up at the same angle as his rifle. When they visited Cassium, Lance named a constellation “Angel” because he could almost see wings, matching the wings of Cassium natives.

There are probably real, well known constellations in all these systems. Lance knows that. But he makes the new ones anyway, just for himself, because he wants to feel like he’s at home. At home, he could look up at the sky at night and know enough about the stars to ramble about them for a while. Here, he knows nothing.

He decides to change that. Lance may be a stranger in this space, in this big dark empty, but not for long! Not if he has anything to say about it! He asks Allura to let him sit in the observation deck and look at the sky, and she gives him an odd look but says yes. He talks to Pidge about space, asks them if there are any stars that they can see from here that can also be seen from Earth. 

(the answer is always no; they’re just too far away. he pretends he doesn’t mind.)

Lance loves space, so he decides to try and make it as familiar as one can when you’re moving faster than the speed of light.

And it’s not like things _always_ suck. There’s this rush he gets when he’s flying with Blue- with _Red._ There’s this rush he gets when he’s flying with Red, like this is what he was made to do, like this is what he’s always wanted out of life. He flies and feels like he’s on top of the world. His face is awash in blue- in _red_ light and he smiles in a way that more baring his teeth than anything.

Sometimes, Lance wonders if the others feel the same way about flying. How could they not? Flying is exhilarating, it leaves you in control and helpless at the same time, you bring down a Galra battleship and you’re winning and you can hear your friends winning through the comms, too. And when you aren’t winning, well. That just means you get the chance to keep fighting.

Maybe some of the exhilaration is in the fight, too. Not just the flying.

Whatever. In Lance’s situation, fighting and flying end up becoming the same thing. 

(maybe that’s why he misses Blue so much. maybe because with Blue, there was fighting, sure, but the very first time he ever saw her, all he had to do was ask. he just had to knock. and she let him in, teeth glinting, mouth opening to let him walk inside and sit down in a chair that fit him, perfectly.)

(when he sat down in Red, the seat was uncomfortable. like it was made for someone else.)

(because it _was_.)

Nope. Nope! Lance loves Red. He loves the rush of flying as fast as you do in Red. He loves the way Red purrs in the back of his mind, how it’s not as cool and collected as Blue’s voice was but it’s right there, like a car engine revving. Lance loves flying Red, loves winning in Red.

(but the first time he ever heard him call out, the first time he rode in Red, it was a battle. Red’ll never feel like home the way Blue did.)

(and Lance is learning to live with that.)

When Lance can get away with it, he’ll take Red for a ride. He’ll make a constellation from out there, not the observation deck or the planet they’re currently visiting. Red seems to enjoy their outings. Keith doesn’t, but when does Keith ever like anything Lance does?

He makes the constellations and learns to live with the fact that loving one lion will never feel the same as loving another in the way that a first crush will always be the longest.

* * *

Not to sound like Keith, but sometimes training can be fun, okay?

Lance has been at it for a while now, working with the bots, practicing his aim. He was never this good back on Earth, but he’s good now. He’s a sharpshooter! No one calls him that, of course, but he _is_! He’s a damn good shot and he hasn’t let anyone down yet.

He’s training, and the bots are surrounding him. He switches from his blaster to his rifle so he can get them more accurately. But here’s the thing about being a sharpshooter: close range is _not_ his thing, no matter how much Keith wants it to be.

(Keith keeps trying to make Lance train with him. Lance isn’t dumb. he isn’t going to walk right into a chance for Keith fuckin’ Kogane to make fun of him at every turn.)

The bots are getting closer and closer, and Lance feels something in his gut that has to be dread (it has to be, right?), and he shoots another one but there’s still four left, spinning around him, they won’t kill him but they’ll leave him stunned on the ground for a few minutes, he doesn’t want Keith to find him and tease him for this, the dread in his gut gets louder (louder?), and he closes his eyes and suddenly his bayard _isn’t_ a gun. Suddenly, he’s holding something else entirely.

The bots are still humming, loud in his ears. Lance exhales, opens his eyes, doesn’t question it, and slices the bots to pieces. The simulation ends. He sits down, breathing heavy, and then freezes.

“What the _fuck_ ,” he wheezes, looking at his hands. He’s holding a sword. A whole sword. Something like Keith has for his bayard, but fancier and done up a bit. 

No one else has two forms for their bayard. Certainly, no one has three. Lance has his blaster, and he has his rifle, and now he has a fucking _sword_! What! 

The door slides open. Lance looks up, eyes wide, almost going to hide the sword. He doesn’t really know why. But then he sees who it is, and. Oh.

“Hey, Lance, Hunk wants you, apparently he’s making dinner and needs his best taste tester… woah.” Keith trails off, stopping his quick stride into the training room altogether. “Is. Is that-”

“A sword,” Lance says. “Yeah? I think?” His voice cracks a little. “I don’t know, I was just training and boom! You know?”

Lance stands up, spins the thing around and somehow manages not to accidentally throw it across the room. Keith looks… is, is he blushing? Is his face red? God damn it, if Keith’s jealous of Lance for having a cooler sword than he does, Lance is going to lose it.

“Keith? Anyone home?” Lance asks, and Keith shakes his head like he’s waking up.

“Yeah,” he says. “That’s just… that’s pretty cool, Lance.”

Oh. “Oh,” Lance says. “Thanks, man.”

“Isn’t that your third bayard form?” Keith asks, and his voice is completely genuine. He sounds almost impressed.

Lance preens. “Yeah, I guess so,” he says, a little cocky. He spins the sword in his hand again and- yeah, this time, he accidentally throws it across the room. “Shit. Uhhh. Well, I’m still getting used to it, and stuff, I’ll get better with practice-”

“We should practice together!” Keith says loudly, and then winces at himself. “I mean. We should spar. Together. Since we both have swords now.”

“I bet my sword is longer than yours,” Lance says, because he’s a five-year-old at heart. 

Keith considers. “Well, it actually looks like it might be, since mine is- wait.” Lance loses it, because again, he is five, and Keith sighs far more dramatically than need be. “Yes, I get it,” Keith says dryly. “I walked into a dick joke.”

“God, I’m hilarious,” Lance says when he isn’t laughing. “But actually? I think I’d like that. Training with you, I mean. While I am incredible at everything I do-” Keith rolls his eyes, something Lance takes offense to- “you’re definitely better with a sword than I am.”

“Well, I’ll teach you,” Keith says confidently. “I’ll also kick your ass.”

“Ohhhhhh man,” Lance says, “if anyone’s ass is getting kicked around here, it’s yours, buddy.”

“We’ll see about that,” Keith retaliates. And Keith- Keith _smiles_ , which he hasn’t been doing in a long time. Since the lion switch, at least. The only time Lance has seen him smile is during battle, when they pull off a particularly good move.

He holds out his hand, and Lance shakes it.

Someone clears their throat from the door. Lance drops Keith’s hand like he’s been burned.

“Hey guys,” Hunk says awkwardly. “I was going to see if Lance was coming down to the kitchens to help, but if you’re busy…”

“Nope! No, not at all,” Lance says quickly, and he grabs his bayard from the ground that (thankfully) returned to its neutral form. “I’ll see ya, Keith,” he says, and salutes before all but sprinting out the door.

Hunk gives Lance a Look once the doors are closed. Lance sighs dramatically. “What were you guys doing in there?” Hunk asks in a voice that is not sneaky. 

“It was just a handshake,” Lance protests weakly.

“That was the gayest handshake I’ve ever seen,” Hunk replies.

* * *

Lance has been swimming since he could walk, so he can’t really remember the first time he swam. He’s sure that he almost drowned once or twice. There’s definitely one family memory of him jumping straight into the ocean before he was three years old and almost dying.

What he _does_ remember is his first time riding a bike. He was six years old. He crashed into his dad’s car in the driveway, left a dent on the front that they could never really get rid of. Then he learned how to ride a bike, and he used it to get around anywhere. 

The only place his bicycle couldn’t take him was space.

So he became a pilot.

* * *

Xreeks is a beautiful planet. It’s like Earth in a way, but the plants and trees are more of a purple-pink shade than green, and there are two suns. A binary system. The people there are tall, much taller than humans, and they each have a unique mark on their foreheads.

“Like fingerprints,” Hunk says, and Nylo, the leader, asks what fingerprints are, which leads to conversations about Earth and diplomacy and things Lance can never bring himself to be interested in.

Lance’s gaze wanders, looking at the planet and the sky and the tall purple trees in the garden that they’re currently standing in. He looks at the palace ahead of them, a great tall building, but surprisingly narrow. He wonders if that’s how most architecture is here. He looks at Keith, and finds Keith looking back.

He winks, because why the hell not? Keith’s ears flush red, but he gives him a small smile in return. Lance and Keith both aren’t the greatest listeners. They always make eye contact during these conversations, the ones that happen on every single planet they visit ever. The diplomatic ones, the important ones, the ones that Lance should definitely be paying attention to but never does because standing and listening is not among his skill sets.

He looks around, and he sees a street that must lead into the main city. It’s full of people like Nylo, tall with kind faces and too big eyes, and he sees it.

A little shop with bicycles in the windows.

Lance tunes back into the conversation, hears Allura say something like “well, the paladins and I will need a place to stay for the night,” and cuts in as politely as possible: “Excuse me, but is there any way we can explore the city tonight? I would love to meet some of your people and get to know them. If that’s alright with you, your majesty.” Lance smiles charmingly. Everyone loves his smile. It’s gotten him this far.

Luckily, Nylo also seems to love his smile. “That would be acceptable,” he says kindly, and Lance nods as a thank you. “Whenever you wish to rest, you are welcome in the palace. We have plenty of guest rooms for you all the stay.”

As soon as they are dismissed, Lance grabs Keith’s arm before he can walk away. “Wanna explore?” he asks.

Keith blinks. “Okay,” he says, and they’re off, Lance saluting to the rest of the team before racing down the streets.

When they get to the shop, Lance only has to mention being a paladin of Voltron and suddenly their bikes are free for the evening. He wants to feel bad for using his position to get what he wants, but then Keith smiles at him and he pushes his feet against the pedals and they ride down the streets of some big city on a planet millions and millions of lightyears from Earth.

Lance assumed he would be rusty, but it only takes him a second before he gets the rhythm of it again. Keith looks like he’s doing the same. The streets are long and narrow and lit with bright, colorful lights, and once they’re going, Lance laughs out loud.

“Thanks for coming with me, man,” he says to Keith.

“You were right,” Keith replies.

“What?”

“You were right,” he says. “It is like flying.”

> _Not often,_
> 
> _but now and again there’s a moment_
> 
> _when the heart cries aloud:_
> 
> _yes, I am willing to be_
> 
> _that wild darkness,_
> 
> _that long, blue body of light._

**Author's Note:**

> –mary oliver, _whelks_


End file.
